Georgia - crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa - a place where the oldest early human remains outside of Africa were found. These remains are dated to be nearly 1.8 million years old and, therefore, are considered as the first migrants to travel out of Africa and as ancestors of the first Europeans.
The five exceptionally well preserved early human skulls represent the full spectrum of individual developmental ages (subadult, young adult, mature and old) are of major importance for the human evolutionary research. These skulls share a mixture of morphological features that make them look similar to each other in some aspects and in others - different from each other, thus sparking the idea of having two different species in the same location. Eventually, the thorough research has shown that these individuals belong to one and the same early human species - Homo erectus - but exhibit a range of inner-species variation.. Thus, it supports the hypothesis that at the beginning of early expansions from Africa only one early-human species has dispersed and populated Eurasia.
From October 11th to November 18th 2018, the Senckenberg Natural History Museum Frankfurt in cooperation with the Georgian National Museum shows the best preserved "Skull 5" in its treasury. The world's most complete fossil human skull and its lower jaw will be on display outside of Georgia for the first time.
The exhibition of the unique original skull will be accompanied, among other things, by a media presentation of excavation site and excavation works in Dmanisi.